Pandemic Legacy: April Playthrough

Another month has arrived and so the Toledo Tuesdays Gaming Club (info here )had to muster our steely reserve and tackle another episode of Pandemic Legacy!

— SPOILER ALERT —

IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THE APRIL EPISODE OF PANDEMIC LEGACY YET, DO NOT READ THIS BLOG UNTIL YOU DO. PLENTY OF INFORMATION ABOUT THAT THE APRIL EPISODE IS REVEALED HERE.

— SPOILER ALERT —

Recap: In the first three months, the disease in Asia (i.e. the red cubes) mutated into the non-treatable and incurable COdA virus. We spent last month running around establishing military bases and eradicating the BSNL-419 virus in Central and South America. For a review of the March playthrough click Here

April Setup

April started quite slowly. Using our bonus from the previous month we put a military base in Tehran. There were no new developments during setup, our mission would remain the same as March: cure the three diseases that we could cure (i.e. not the COdA virus) and try to eradicate one disease or build some military stations.

Then extremely good luck happened: 6 of the 9 infection cards drawn during setup were blue (the virus in North America and Western Europe)! What a stroke of luck! In general, if the infections are huddled together, the medic can sweep them up pretty quickly.

Player Choices: So we decided to start at the CDC in Atlanta and take the following characters (in game turn order):

Stew: Dispatcher (can move everyone around efficiently)

Bob: Researcher (can share cards with other players easily)

Neal: Medic (can treat all cubes in a city)

Lee: Scientist (can find cures more quickly than normal)

And a special bonus was that in a previous month we had given the Medic the Character Upgrade of “Local Connections. Once per turn you may Treat Disease in a city connected to your city.” Thus, the plan was for the Medic to sweep up either the yellow and black cubes, or alternately the blue cubes, quickly while the Dispatcher kept the Researcher and Scientist together to find cures. We drew our cards and the Scientist started with two Black cards while the Researcher had another Black card. We decided that our first goal would be to get cure Black first and then deal with the Blue virus.

Playthrough

The game went completely as planned…for at least the first few turns. The Medic swept up cubes while the other players tried to pass cards to the Researcher. We caught a very lucky break when the Medic flew to our permanent research station in Baghdad, treated the Black cubes in Cairo (the only Black cubes on the board!) and the Scientist on the very next turn cured the Black disease. We eradicated the Black disease on the second round of the game!

It was the second epidemic that sent things in a very unexpected direction. After resolving the second epidemic card we had to reveal a number of Legacy cards. And we did not expect what was about to happen!

Basically, the COdA virus mutated again into the COdA-403c virus. It still couldn’t be treated or cured but now the infected became aggressive and their skin turned a translucent yellow. They would now be known as the Faded!

The glowing figures of the Faded

No longer would Red cubes be placed on the board. The next Red city that we would draw from the Infection Deck would be ground-zero of the Faded infection. From now on we would place Faded figures on the board. We quickly realized that the Faded would be the equivalent of a Zombie horde, and one that we couldn’t really address directly.

So, we continued our relentless attempt to meet our objectives before the Faded got on the board. But of course, we drew a Red city quickly-Ho Chi Minh City–so in our version of Pandemic Legacy the end of the world would begin in Vietnam.

Ground zero in Vietnam. Note the new yellow sticker placed over the more familiar red virus circle

Well, this certainly was not a pleasant development. But we pressed on and quickly cured the Blue disease (the medic swept through Northern Europe and North America treating disease as he moved). The other three characters then treated the Yellow disease (mainly in Mexico City but not really much of it was on the board) and the Scientist found a cure while at the CDC in Atlanta to win the game. The very excellent opening draw plus our selection of characters worked very well. We felt that we were in control the entire time.

Upgrades and Endgame

We have found that curing diseases quickly, and eradicating them, plus being able to move around the globe without burning cards in Direct Flights (that’s what we use our Red cards for now) is the easiest way to win (much like regular vanilla Pandemic). For our endgame upgrades we chose 1) a positive mutation for the Black virus (we eradicated it in this game, but we haven’t yet decided on a name for it) and 2) to put the Unfunded Event Air Strike on the Sydney card. Here is what the diseases look like at the end of April:

Our Event funds are now down to 4, so we expect a difficult time in May. Also, the board seems to indicate that in May we will need to accomplish three objectives, so we are not optimistic about winning the first time through the May episode.

If you are interested in buying Pandemic Legacy you can get it on Amazon ( here ) or from Z-Man Games ( here ).

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